Watch: Snarky Puppy Preview New Album ‘Somni’ with First Single and Orchestral Music Video for “Waves Upon Waves”

Photo Credit: Annemone

Snarky Puppy has announced the impending release of their new album, Somni, due on November 21, 2025, via GroundUP Music. The imminent collection marks the second time bandleader and composer Michael League has collaborated with the Netherlands-based jazz-pop orchestra, Metropole Orkest, stemming from their Grammy-winning 2015 output, Sylvia. Coupled with the promise of new music is a preview, administered via the first single “Waves Upon Waves,” and its official music video. 

“Waves Upon Waves” presents an illustrious, sweeping soundscape featuring an extensive display of instrumentalists, ranging from Snarky Puppy’s own collective of horns, percussion, strings, and keys contributors, and more than 50 orchestra members, guided by conductor Jules Buckley. Cinematic at times, the track, which lingers under the eight-minute marker, represents a continuation of Snarky Puppy’s brazen and collaborative approach to mixing genres and expanding upon the definition of fluidity in music. 

Somni combines the best from collective units’ live performances over three nights, January 17-19, 2025, in Utrecht, Netherlands, which was heralded for its rotating lineup of world-class players, who have spun a web to connect their combined capacity for funk, jazz, soul, and global music traditions. 

The unexplainable creativity of the dream realm inspired the new set of music, which sparked the idea for the LP title, translated as “dream” from Catalan, an influence of League’s life in Barcelona. As a further reflection of the album’s global nature, much of the material was composed in rural Japan, where League spent a month writing in solitude. “I just kind of gave myself a month to write,” he recalls. “It was in the middle of nowhere … completely alone.”

Speaking to the totality of his experience, League continues, “It’s by far the most ambitious project we’ve ever done … and it was one of the smoothest records we’ve ever made. Every individual team did their job with so much care and love — from the camera operators to our production. The instant feedback was the warmest we’ve ever had. It was encouraging to know that after 22 years of doing what we do, the music is still reaching people.”

Watch the official music video for “Waves Upon Waves,” and pre-order Somni. 

Track List:

Waves Upon Waves

As You Are

Chimera

Between Worlds

Recurrent

Drift

Only Here

It Stays With You